Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Whether you are
considering your options for you next TV Commercial, Music Video, or Corporate
video you owe it to yourself to explore the 4k camera options. Everyone
would like the best quality. However, budgets can limit it. Many might be
surprised to find out the cost that goes with the 4k cameras is not that
prohibitive. It is definitely true, especially now with newer, better, and less
expensive cameras coming on the market. A warning, just because you have one of
the 4k cameras, it does not mean the final product is going to be substantially
better. Lenses, lighting, and your camera operator all determine the quality of
the final piece. You must have the proper gear and crew to realize the quality
increase. With that said, here are some benefits to going with a 4k camera.

First, what is 4k?
The actual term is Ultra High Definition (Ultra HD) as oppose to just High
Definition (HD). A typical HD Camera shoots in 1920 X 1080 pixels (or close to
it). The Red Scarlet, a popular Ultra HD camera, shoots in 4096 x 2160 pixels.
To sum it up, an Ultra HD Camera gives you 4 times the pixel output of an HD
Camera, which means it is far more detailed and produces a sharper image. As
another point of reference, the now almost completely irrelevant Standard
Definition (SD) Cameras shoot at a resolution of 720 X 480 pixels.

Plainly put, Ultra HD is
better than regular HD, much like HD was better than SD. This makes it easier
to conclude that you will see major quality improvements. Here are other
reasons to consider 4k:

Future proofing your content – The future is here with Ultra HD TVs already on
the market. They are currently a little pricy, but you can expect prices to
come down and more options to come on the market. Ultra HD players are
currently being developed (no standard like Blu-ray), while YouTube and Netflix
are already capable of streaming Ultra HD content. Expect broadcaster to follow
suit. Even 4k smart phones are being developed like the Samsung Galaxy S5.

Reframing – Since most of the final video projects get down converted to HD,
you'll have a greater ability to zoom in, crop, and manipulate your footage
without degrading the quality. If you want the final video in 4k, you lose the
value of this method, unless you are shooting with a camera that has a
resolution equal to or greater than 5k.

Color Grading Made Easier – When cameras record highly compressed images in
camera that often comes with the drawbacks of clipped highlights, crushed
shadows and what is considered a "baked-in" look. Once the footage
gets to post production, this can mean big problems. With 4k+ RAW files, you
can make your own color choices from the source data, instead of trying to
change colors that are baked into a .mov file. This can lead to much better
results.

Green Screen Keying - With four times the data, your keying software should
have an easier time differentiating the green pixels you want to key from the
precise edge of the talent. It also makes mismatches between background and
subject more obvious and motion tracking easier. There's a reason why chroma
key shots are often done with UHD or higher cameras even if the rest of a movie
is captured on a different (lower resolution) format.

There are more benefits I can bring up about 4k, but there are also some
negatives such as price, storage, and the need to upgrade equipment to support
it. Capacity and processing speed has doubled approximately every two years
since the publication of Moore’s Law in 1965, some argue that it doubles
faster. This means that technologies will always chase each other and that a
data stream that may seem very difficult to handle today may be a smooth,
simple process tomorrow. Overall, if you want to give your video, movie, or
commercial a longer shelf life or you just want to keep up with the quality
output of your competitors, then waiting to upgrade is not an option.